


Woolworm/Angry Son

by kusuriuriri



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Music, Angst, Coming of Age, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Indie Music, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, in which gay guitars instead of gay piano or chamber instruments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-09-03 06:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8701240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kusuriuriri/pseuds/kusuriuriri
Summary: To Shinji, music was always something intensely personal. But in the autumn of 1998, when his Father moves the two of them out of New York and into Illinois, he finds himself sharing it with the eccentric Kaworu Nagisa, a loner in in his new High School.





	1. Blues Run The Game

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so, this is my first uploaded fanfiction, and I'd really appreciate any feedback you'd be kind enough to give. Everything from simple encouragement to lacerating crit.

  
  
A monotonous world glides by as Shinji stares out the car door. Since learning to read sheet music, he couldn’t ever avoid seeing the wires between telephone poles as slurs in musical notation, but this isn’t a thought now; it just floats in his mind. His trance is broken when the Discman begins skipping and dying, so he switches to his old SDAT, frustrated. Although most everything he buys on CD, he keeps the sturdy cassette player around, despite it’s cracks and fuzzes. He’s loved the songs on it for too long, spent too much time staring at the ceiling at 1am with the thing humming in his hands. In times like this -as he shifts to push his legs into his chest, leaning on the grey plastic door- it works as another tool to avoid the silence between him and his father behind the wheel infront. They never talk when he’s driving, or when he isn’t driving. The front seat is always empty, but Shinji sits in the back. 

Even with their stretched relationship, uninterrupted dead air since 6am might be a high score for time spent together, now that the sun's going down. It's a struggle to remember if he's ever been in a car this long. How many telephone poles have passed by? The landscape slowly moves through fields to small towns that don’t look real to Shinji, who's lived inner city his whole life. There's too much space in Illinois, Shinji thought, already missing the anonymity of New York crowds.

All his living memory had been in that city. It wasn't so much that he felt affection for the place, but more he feared the unknown. A change so uncertain it made his hands sweat and pulse quicken to think of it. Another nervous breakdown is just around the corner, he was certain. 

As for why the change was happening, Shinji's still unsure if his father transferred universities or if the university transferred him, unloading him on some cultural nowhere if he was too significant to outright fire, but it wouldn't make a difference either way. They lived in New York, now they won’t; Shinji doesn’t ask about his father’s work. 

Whats with all this space in the Midwest? Is this much corn necessary? Although there seemed maybe comfort in this emptiness, the thought that he couldn't help but follow with is how much he’d stick out, attract scrutiny, when there wasn't a million around him at once. Even high school routine is easier than bearing the scrutiny of strangers. 

Of high school, Shinji writes in his journal he had no friends, but that's a more comfortable lie. He had grey, social nothings he herded with. He'd never be worth anything in the high school order, he knew, but he also knew how to keep his head down and shut up. Not to desperately plea for companionship -not to expose his vulnerabilities- like how got the truly bullied kids into trouble. If he can cry on the toilet seat in his free periods, if he can go home early when the weight of living really crushes him, and if he has his music, he could survive his old high school. He wonders if he'll be able to pull the trick off again here. Maybe miracles don't happen twice. It was only luck his last breakdown didn’t begin in school hours.

The interstate 74 is almost over. He can feel it, as the landscape transforms from cornfields to houses. They pass a sign, “Welcome to Urbana” just visible in the twilight. 800 miles is a long time inside a car, and a longer time with his father, but somehow relief doesn’t appear, just trepidation that moves out of the background of his thoughts and into mind’s front. 

Or maybe that's harsh. Urbana doesn't feel like hell, anyway. More like purgatory. The wide streets and heavy trees aren't as unnerving in this dusk as he anticipated, and he's growing happier at this long streak of not seeing another human being, even as he worries of its end. People live here right? It's not just a model town for alien study?

They finally reach the house, and relief comes, because it means he can sleep soon. First viewing it from it’s front, Shinji's cynical. He’s only ever lived in apartments, but this structure was only a few layers of complexity above the way an infant draws a home. A feeling of ghosts moves through a building like this, to him, carrying the weight of others peoples lives. His life never felt heavy like those ghosts did. His felt so light it drifted passively, like a dead leaf in wind. 

The movers got there before them, leaving a house filled with boxes. Entering his room, there were only a few for all of Shinji’s belongings. After making his bed, trying to ignore the strange feeling of a new room, and putting new batteries in his Discman, he can begin studying the subtle differences in this white ceiling from that of his last home. The last was plastered; this is painted wood. 

He doesn't have to share this space, his space, with anyone. He can wait on everything till tomorrow; he can forget for now. No one has to ask about his dreams; no one will touch him. His bed isn't soft.  
  


* * *

 

At the aural pierce of Shinji’s digital clock radio alarm, he slams his hand down for mercy. But his impulse doesn’t adjust to his new room’s layout, and the heel of his hand strikes the flat, lacquered wood of his bedside table. It sears, which wakes him anyway.

Walking downstairs to the kitchen, it’s no surprise that his Father’s already left. What is surprising is the care of a note on the kitchen table. Simple words, but even this kind of apparent thoughtfulness is few and far between with Gendo. His father’s handwriting is typewriter-uniform.

“Turn right and walk. Turn left at roundabout. High School is 15 minutes away. Talked to them already.”

Shinji eats an obligatory bowl of cereal, and catches himself staring into it like an oracle’s tea cup, before heading out. On the walk he grows marginally calmer, at the days trial ahead, which he thinks is because he's listening to music, keeping his old mixtape in his ears for now. The complete familiarity -every note memorised- is an anchor in this new world. It’s not just this that's calming him though. The patchy slant sunrays through the large oak trees and the manicured, oversized, lawns, they have a certain unavoidable ambience. Not enough to straighten his back or make his steps anything but forced, but progress is progress. 

Only one thing lowers his spirits before school; a church he passes on the way. From New York, Shinji’s used to Churches as a statement, a focus of the whole world for those who notice it, but a diminutive afterthought for everyone else. A church out here is different. The open air above a church in New York gave it weight, hallowed the ground compared to the skyscrapers adjacent. Here, the structure towers over its neighbours. Its central spire, with the cross on the top, castes a heavy shadow in Shinji's direction. The stateliness of the thing gets to Shinji, as he scurries past. It unsettles him to be in the shadow of the cross. It makes him feel like he's the new kid, and he’s not even the new kid at school yet.

From a distance, the central building of Urbana High School has the shape and colour of a brick stuck perpendicular in the ground, and the way it imposes over its meadowy grounds (his old school had no green) makes Shinji’s steps slow to a shuffle. He's staring at its exterior, watching the unbroken souls flow in, chatting and smiling. Shinji takes a deep breath, and closes his mind to it all. Find the office with your day guide. Find your class. Find your seat. Sit down. He puts horse blinkers on his mind. Only issue is, he has to keep functioning without feeling. To find the entrance office, to fake cordiality with his guide (whose eyes will betray a please-don't-sit-with-my-group-at-lunch apprehension), to introduce himself countlessly over, to avoid any teacher’s bullying. God, actually that sounds like a lot. Too much. Maybe I'll turn away now, he thinks. Damage control. I can prepare better. Right now I'm worthless, right now I'll bother everyone and they'll decide forever to avoid me, even the teachers will start-

A shock crashes Shinji's train of thought, when a wily-looking fellow student apears, pushing farther into his personal space than preferred, and Shinji steps back. Round glasses on a freckled face. Shinji feels himself sweating. The student's beginning to talk, but Shinji can't hear him, on account of the headphones. He apologises as he takes them off. 

“Don’t worry about it. Hi! You must be Shinji Ikari! I’m Kensuke Aida, and I’m here to help you around. I share all your classes today, but there's a few times we'll be split other days. I heard you’re Gendo Ikari’s son? I’ve been volunteering at the science faculty of the university and there’s been nothing but talk about his appointment.”

“...Yeah, thats me.”

Kensuke walks and Shinji follows, but the questions are endless. How was the research going at Mr.Ikari’s last university? Just fine, Shinji says. He avoids knowing because his Dad’s research scares him, but Shinji doesn’t say that. Does he talk about it around the house? A little, Shinji says. He doesn’t.

Up to lunch time, Shinji and Kensuke share classes, and nothing goes wrong. Shinji can even follow him into the school’s cafeteria without feeling obtrusive. Maybe the archetypal nature of the place makes it a bit easier to swallow, Shinji thinks. His school in New York had been atypical, not being in suburbia , but this place seems like the reference material for teen dramas. He can almost locate things based on assumption; the cafeteria’s the same. He’s now bungled a few introductions, passed a few others, and sat next to Kensuke on a table at the end of a central row. Scanning the room, this table seems -conveniently- right on the social rung that Shinji hoped to pinpoint. Not a pariah, but of no significance. Difficult to humiliate yourself when no one talks to you; difficult to become hated when no one thinks of you. His eyes move to check the corner of the room for the kind of pariah that he’s intent on not becoming, but he’s astonished by what he sees. 

The shock of thick, almost white hair that rises from his head in a post-punk spike. Pale skin. A thin frame, but a deliberateness in poise that doesn’t seem fragile. More, the way his body moved seemed weightless. Shinji stares until he catches himself doing so, then he makes sure to turn around quickly so as to not to betray the lightning bolt that just struck him. At seventeen, Shinji’s luckily been through most of his sexual confusion by now, and finding a boy beautiful isn't seismic, though he’s still ashamed. Whenever a guy enchants him, he tries to feel grateful he can find women attractive too, but no one of any gender has struck him as intensely as this boy just did now; it winds him.    

“You were looking at Nagisa?” The boy across the table interjects. He dresses like the Eastern-European immigrant teenagers back in New York, and Shinji thinks he remembers his name is Touji. 

A panicking pause, and though he can feel his skin tinge red, Shinji reasons quickly; If I say no, he’ll think I’m hiding something, and the last thing I needs is for fag rumours to start spreading. No reason to announce how divine this Nagisa kid seemed to him, he looks strange enough to justify looking regardless. He’s privately proud he can make this kind of tactical decision now, which would’ve been impossible to his younger self.  

“I’ve just never seen anyone with that hair colour before.”

“Yeah, strange, isn't it? Th’whole family has it.”

“Oh, does he have siblings here?”

“They’ve all graduated now, but there’s -get this- TWELVE of them.”

“Twelve!?”

“Yeah, I've seen a few of them around town. It’s some Jesus freak thing. His Dad’s the minister at the Pentecostal church down the road from here. The weirdest thing is, though, none of them look anything like him, ‘sides the hair. They’re all built like fucking brick houses. The shortest of them would be 6”4 and like 200 pounds, and there's that twig over there!”

The table quietened down for Touji’s diatribe, but no one seems intent on jumping in. Kensuke brings up a coming exam, and then what was worth talking about to everyone else takes over quite easily. Shinji feels relieved Nagisa’s corner seat is behind him, so his eyes can't wander over so easily.


	2. A Little Lost

Walking down a linoleum hallway Shinji feels he already knows, lined with lockers of people he’s never seen. He's satisfied with how day's gone -quiet contentment that what he had before was easily gained in his new town. Things not getting worse was all he had hoped for, after all. Only one class left to survive, Music. 

The music classroom is on a corridor that extends leftward from the main building maximally, being one of the most remote rooms in the whole school. Kensuke had the class as well. Walking there, Shinji’s trying to word a question along the lines of “why does someone otherwise only in non-artistic subjects and with the look of a D&D fanatic do music?”. It comes out something like “what instrument do you play?”.   
  
“Just piano, but I'm not that interested in it. I'm more into recording and audio engineering.”   
  
Right, that answers that. 

Getting there, he takes the seat in the back middle, Kensuke to his right side. It’s a small class, only seven now, and Kensuke’s already introduced most of them. Touji’s ahead, the girl named Asuka is to his side. On the other, The girl Touji’s obviously crushing on, what’s her name?

The teacher arrives late, but not without flourish. Her striking figure exaggerates a walk-over and lean-onto her desk, and the sunlight to her right side pushes over her body in a way Shinji knows he’ll have trouble getting out of his head. 

“I see we have a new student today. Mr. Shinji Ikari, my name’s Misato Katsuragi. You can call me Misato if you like”. -a wink- “You came at good day Shinji. Our class has been practising songs which we’ll all perform now. As agreed whoever’s latest goes first, and the only per-”

No one saw Nagisa get there, but he’s leaning on the doorframe. Seeing him the second time, Shinji feels another headrush.    
  
“I’m sorry for my impertinence, Ms Katsuragi. I’ll play now, if that’s fine with you.”

From the back of the classroom, Shinji’s hearing his voice for the first time. It sounds like caramel smells, like a woollen blanket feels. He pushes these thoughts away, knowing they’ll do him no good.

Stepping aside, Misato gestures to the beaten, upright excuse of an instrument against the windows, though Kaworu obviously knows where it is, as he sits down soundlessly. 

From the first few bars, Shinj recognises the piece. It’s Debussy’s Arabesque No.1, and Kaworu plays it with a softness, a weightlessness, that’s unreal. It’s exactly how Shinji’s mother used to play, and Shinji’s all suddenly living in the memory of his mother at the piano. A touch of fingers so light they were ghostly, smooth runs that swept across the whole keyboard pausing on suspended chords. Yuki’s wasn’t playing for Shinji, only practising, but as his mother played, Shinji could not be separated in the house. Though truly he did not pay the most attention, distracted by games and food, the music became his ideal silence. In relaxing him, the sound became pavlovian.

His Mother never played when asked by guests, describing her former professional aspirations as naive, and her skills amateur. But with no music through the house, Shinji grew more anxious, reinforcing his fear of strangers. 

With those soft, graceful cadences falling through his mind, body at ease, his mother’s presence is almost real, pushing through his mind and onto the air, dissipating it. Kaworu stops playing, and Shinji hunches forward into his beige desk, trying not to betray how moved he was. 

Soon follows everyone else. Touji plays the drumset in the back of the class with a force perfect for a rockband, but he’s trying to pull off a jazz standard and the result’s more than a little awkward. Kensuke asks if he can stick forks and pins through the strings in the old upright piano for a John Cage piece on “prepared piano” but Misato turns him down, saying they have enough trouble with the thing as it is. Kensuke then says he can’t play his piece without this, and Misato fumes, saying he should’ve asked in advance. Kensuke says he’ll play another Cage song, 4:33, instead, and so sits in front of the piano in complete silence for four minutes and 33 seconds. Shinji gets the joke, but doesn’t think it’s funny. Hikari plays a Paganini piece on the violin, and along with Kaworu seems the most talented in the class. 

Once playing finished, Misato announces the new task. Everyone’s to form pairs to give mutual feedback on how the other’s song went. Predictably, quick as a single thought, everyone’s swam to their instinctual partner, with the exception of the two boys in the back. Shinji wishes he wasn’t left alone with Kaworu. There’s the simple aspect that Kaworu’s elegance is intimidating, and Shinji’s never one for confrontation, but it’s more analytic than that. Perfect as he may seem, there’s got to be some reason everyone is avoiding him, and to associate might rub the animosity onto him. Still, rudeness is even less in his nature, and he couldn’t ignore Kaworu’s voice if he tried. 

“Your name is Shinji Ikari, right? It's wonderful to meet you. I’m Kaworu Nagisa.”

The handshake feels neither too strong nor weak in Shinji’s hands, but the touch of his skin is unbearably calming.

Their eyes lock for just a fraction too long, but once breaking Kaworu asks -for the first time of anyone- about how Shinji feels to have moved, how he’s adjusting, and other quietly thoughtful questions. 

“Do you feel disconcerted by the change from a big city to here? I can’t imagine it’s easy.”   


“Well yeah, actually.. I feel more comfortable in a big crowd in public. Here I feel watched all the time.” 

What strikes Shinji most strangely is how he feels he can talk. Kaworu’s presence sucks out air from the room, but although it’s making him nervous, it’s not suffocating. Shinji even, quite uncharacteristically, forgets the task at hand. He has to be prompted.

“Sorry I didn’t get to hear you play, I’d love to in the future. But what did you think of my piece?”   


Being put on the spot like that definitely does suffocate him. Shinji stops to think, or stops till his heart and mind can restart.

“Well I ah, was really just amazed. You … play so beautifully, but make it look effortless. Especially in your use of rubato. I don’t feel I could ever do that, because I’m always too nervous. I really admire it.”

Shinji feels he almost just said too much, his inadequacy peaking through. He was reminding himself of the late nights alone at the guitar, where -with his strange open tunings stolen from a Nick Drake songbook- he’s slowly been making complex, melancholic passages not dissimilar to Debussy’s. But there was always a nervous energy to his hands he couldn’t escape, some built-in frustration in his musical language. He envies the languidness of Kaworu’s playing. He held his body the same way.

“It’s simple really, just about repetition.” He says, humbling himself. 

  
* * *

With the sun burning and the school quieting, music class ends. On the final bell Shinji feels a sudden onset of fatigue, only just realising how much effort he was putting into holding his body together for everyone. He walks out the class and down the hallway next to Kaworu, without the heart to pretend he doesn’t love his company. In the corner of his eye, he can still notice Kensuke, Touji, and all others eyeing him like he’s talking with the school dealer, and it lowers his heart, but not enough to change anything. The schools already mostly empty, and moving through the main entrance that was so scary just this morning, its emptiness pulls a seriousness over the air. 

On the sidewalk, Shinji and Kaworu realise they’re walking in the same direction. But, as the two of them continue home, their sneakers scraping the sidewalk, Kaworu stops. Shinji recognises the building. 

There. The grand hull-like central tower of the church, blazing with holiness in the sunset, and the fierce white of a sign afront, it’s clean letters spelling “REMEMBER: JESUS WATCHES ALWAYS”.    
  


“Well, this is my place.” Kaworu says as his eyes soften. The bitter smile on his face some sort of code. Shinji stands, front facing the building,  and waves a kind of goodbye to the ghostly presence that he’d been living with since lunch. Their time together released, lifted, and then caught, bottled into a memory. As he watches Kaworu enter through the main hallway, he feels that moment of late twilight, where the whole world stops -silence amplifying- and realises the day’s end. A shadow moves across his heart.   

  
* * *    


At 2am, after attempting to practice guitar, Shinji’s curled into the fetal position in his bed. It’s a double, but his frame takes up barely a fraction of it’s surface. His Headphones are in his ears -the SDAT tethered- and he’s trying to listen to fuzzy minor chords, but his head is filled with Kaworu’s hands at the keys, Kaworu’s beaming, and Kaworu’s soft voice. It’s driving him mad, because even if he can accept his own sickness, his attraction to a boy he just met, to know that this boy believes in the godly punishment for that attraction, is too much. This is exactly what he’s been trying to avoid for years; these human attachments bring nothing but pain. 


	3. Woolworm/Angry Son

His hand is saved from the alarm-press pain this morning, but underneath still feels an unrightness around the house; someone else’s qualia. The set for a life he won’t have, now that he’s smitten with a boy. 

On the walk to school, out of the church’s front entrance is Kaworu departing, bag slung over one shoulder. When he meets eyes with Shinji, the smile he pulls is so warm reciprocation feels inevitable. They meet out front on the sidewalk. 

“Are you alright to walk to school together? I wouldn’t want to perturb you, if you’d prefer to be alone.”

Shinji wants to say that it does, and that getting any closer to Kaworu will tear his heart up. He wants to be left alone, but the wide grasp of Kaworu’s energy and the hope in his piercing eyes vaporise Shinji’s protest. 

“No, not at all.” He manages to eak out under the construction of a smile. 

In some form of divine mercy, Shinji shares only one class with Kaworu. Through all the rest of them he can socialise peripherally, with Kensuke or Touji mostly. Whatever the reason, they seem to actually enjoy his company. The people he has conversations with even expands, though not always smoothly. Most particularly, in the entranceway to his first math class, he finds himself ambushed by the redhead he met last lunch, filled with righteous anger. 

“How does it feel, new kid? I’m sure everyone’s been giving you all kinds of special treatment but I don’t care how smart you are. I’m first in all my classes, including this one, and there’s no way you’re taking that from me.”

Shinji tries to look like he takes her seriously as she intones, poking him in the chest with an outstretched index finger. Rumours must be spreading of the town’s New York professor’s prodigious son, probably from Kensuke. But Shinji’s grades barely beat the average, and he never studies diligently. 

“I promise you have nothing to worry about.” He mumbles

“I’d better not.”  She’s louder than necessary. 

Shinji retreats to his seat in the back, adjacent of Touji, who whispers “She’s somethin, huh? Never shuts up. Stone cold bitch.” which sounded harsh to Shinji, but he doesn’t say anything. 

She sits two seats afront, barely out of earshot. Staring at her upright, focussed pose, Shinji appreciates her, because she keeps his -and most of the classes- attention through the whole lesson, and that helped distract him from thinking of Kaworu.

 

* * *

 

Limp breathing and Slack shoulders, it’s only lunch and Shinji feels ready for sleep. He wants to go to the cafeteria, but he thinks of trying to choose between sitting with Kaworu or the others, and trying to not make either side hate him, of them probably all hating him in the end, and he decides to hide instead, even on an empty stomach. 

He begins a search for furtive corners and security; anywhere he can be by himself. In his old school he’d been the master of this. Chairs in the corners of walkways, forgotten half-storage spaces; a talent for avoiding. He’d go to these places and listen to his SDAT as recovery, holding onto himself until the poison in his heart metabolizes. It’s all he needs. 

After searching the library, concluding it beats the cafeteria but isn’t full of the isolation he needs, he’s now caught out in the surrounding halls, which extend like tendrils from the main building. Soon he comes to the practice rooms, adjacent to his music classroom. By some serendipity, it’s silent inside. Shinji’s already sweeping the bag off his shoulder to grab his book but he’s made a mistake; a big one. 

Sitting defenseless is Kaworu over an electric guitar, with the amp plugged to overear headphones that ruffle his hair. He’s engrossed in playing, and doesn’t seem to notice Shinji for a few moments. The languorous stance he holds, legs stretched out over a rainbowy array of guitar pedals, chest bent over the guitar, his body S’d, is something Shinji can’t help but take the advantage to stare at. It’s a few seconds before he moves up and meets Shinji’s eyes, still with that posed smile and either oblivious or ignoring that Shinji was just staring. 

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in, with the headphones on.”

He removes them and his hair remains disfigured. Shinji’s relieved to find an imperfection, even one a little cute. 

A stutter in thought. Wasn’t this exactly what he was avoiding? I’ve got to run away, before this guy starts to think of me as a friend, and I’m trapped in that relationship. 

“Sorry, I thought the room was empty.”

“Don’t go just yet. I’d love for you to stay..” 

Much as Shinji doesn’t want Kaworu to be a part of his life, he also can’t ignore a request like that, laced with expectation. He runs a few excuses through his head, but none fit even the shape of believability, so instead he resigns, moving to a seat across the room and pulling out his Fernando Pessoa book. 

They spend the first few minutes just sharing each other’s silence, with Kaworu’s amp still headphoned. But Shinjis only playing an act of being comfortable. He can barely read the book in front of him, poems loosing their continuity halfway along, restarting, giving up, and then glancing over at Kaworu. There’s a bible sitting on top of his bag, worn and earmarked, which looks heavier than any tome, but from him comes the half audible plucking of an electric guitar unamplified. Slowly, while feigning reading, he tries to piece together what is is he’s playing, but it’s frustrating work. 

In his sheepish glance, Kaworu catches him, and for a second time this lunch he hopes this feeling isn’t showing in his eyes. 

“You can listen through the headphones if you want, but this amplifier’s malfunctioning, sorry.” His hair partially covers his eyes but they still glow in happiness; Shinji rides that. He thinks he should turn back but curiosity is winning. That never happens to him. 

“Well, if that’s okay?”

Handing the headphones over, “Do you want it down?, they’re very loud, but I like it that way.” 

And in a tiny moment another bud of warmth develops because Shinji listens to his music at masochistic volumes too, when the mood merits it. Putting them on over, he can still feel Kaworu’s warmth on the ear pads. The ambient buzz is coming through, of howevermany pedals Kaworu has activated. It gives an expectant mood.

As Kaworu strums his first chord gently, a sound so loud Shinji didn’t it know could come out of headphones strikes a whip through him. The distortion is mysterious, layered, but he can’t even listen over the burn in his ears. He has to take them off. His ears ring as he does.

“Sorry, sorry! I knew I ought to turn it down for you. Here, do you want them back?” he says, moving the knob down from what Shinji hadn’t realised was 10. 

Shinji’s still clasping his ears, as he stares over to this boy so mysterious. Why would someone with such harmonious grace choose to express himself with such severity? What kind of person listened to music like that so nonchalantly? It felt like the language of violence.

“Uh, my ears are ringing right now and I want silence, sorry, I just couldn’t handle it. It’s my fault.” 

“Are you really okay?” voice more laden with worry for Shinji than anyone’s been since his Mom died. 

“Do you need to go to the nurse’s office? I can take you there if you’d like?”

At this he moves his hand over, slowly, to hold onto Shinji’s in his lap. But in the half second of which his touch smoothes across Shinji’s skin, Shinji flinches, and almost falls back. At his reaction to Kaworu’s kindness, he only feels shame. Their eyes meet not in any harmony but an alienating dissonance. 

“I’m sorry, I didn't mean to that, I’m fine, really, i don’t mind. It’s just that I’m not used to being touched. I’m fine, really.”

But the disorder in this moment, the unsettled ground, is getting to him, coupled with the fatigue that made him want to be alone in the first place, shaking him. He’s almost ready to run outright and cry somewhere. His face reddens and wells. So gently it comes more slowly than the hand grab, Kaworu puts his hand on Shinji’s back, and it helps.    
  
“Is this okay?” Kaworu asks, an Shinji hurries a nod instead of speaking.  

The heart overflow subsides, the damn walls in Shinji hold, and he feels the slightest bit warmer under it all, even while holding a sadness that says, oh, there’s no hope now, you’ve done it, completely fallen for him.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, as they meet walking, Kaworu stops and stares at Shinji with a disconcerting seriousness. He reaches into his bag, and pulls out a cassette tape, blank, it’s label is written over in florid cursive. 

“ I made you a mixtape, it’s of things I think you might like”

As the tape’s presented to Shinji, for not the first time, but maybe the strangest, Kaworu’s making him feel things he hasn’t before. Around them the wind seems to pick up, rustling the trees all around, and the sound holds up the unreality of the moment. 

Shinji’s never made a tape for anyone. The idea of such an innate magic as what Shinji’s music feels to him being sacrificed to another, hoping someone else can feel what it means, is intimidating. The tape looks hard and heavy. 

“Wow, ok, thanks” is all he can get out, feeling inadequate as ever. Their fingers touch on the passover. 

Kaworu looks ready to walk on, though still watching Shinji, who squirms under his eyes. Shinji needs to ask something, so he piles up his ramshackle courage, and fights his impulse to ignore it.  

“Thanks again but, why is it that you’d make this for me?” 

“It’s nothing so complicated. I just think you’re worthy of it.” 

The cut in Shinji’s stomach that Kaworu makes never really goes away, but it just tightened two stitches worth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't work out a way to naturally signpost this in the text, but the chapter titles in this fic are actually the tracklist for the mixtape Kaworu gives to Shinji in this chapter. When the fic's completely uploaded, you can put them all together yourself and listen to the mix! You might be confused for some of my choices for a Kawoshin fanfic, but every song has its reason.
> 
> Also, thanks for the positive reaction everyone, It's rlly motivating.


	4. Sinews

It’s science class the next day when what felt inevitable happens, but in a small mercy it’s broached by Kensuke, not a harsher communicator like Touji or Asuka.

“You’ve been hanging out with Nagisa a lot, right?”

The subtle “we’d prefer if you didn’t” stains his words. But, as this anxiety starts to eat into Shinji, a question still hovers over things. Sure, his family had a bad reputation, but he was kind, beautiful, intelligent, and a whole lot else. Surely there was some capital in that, so what made Kaworu ostracised?

Kensuke continues “ I mean, you’ve noticed how he’s always alone right? Well, just don't think we hate him, or you cause you’re friends.”  
  
Wait, what?

“I mean, some people in school say he gives them the creeps, but really he’s always just wanted to keep by himself.”

“He never wanted to be friends with you guys?”

“No, not with anyone. He’s still pretty popular with girls, getting confessed to once a month or so, but he always turns them down. He turns down everyone, just sits and reads his book. Pretty weird, huh?”

Shinji mumbles some nondescript reply, but gears are turning in his head about what could possibly be his appeal to the other boy, and why he choses to be alone. Shinji can empathise with the need for isolation, but how gregarious Kaworu seemed around Shinji was contradictory to someone in love with their own solitude. He can't help but also think, if his other friends wouldn’t reject him for being with Kaworu, he can’t use that excuse to himself to get out of Kaworu’s way, to avoid this crush that's turning his world from colourless to black. What happens now? He’s stuck, tethered.

 

* * *

 

Still, in some way it's a blessing, as class continues and days start to bleed together. The designated table, the berating from Asuka, and Touji’s rambunctiousness, he falls into it. There's only a little more love here than his last life, but something's changing.

Kaworu doesn’t sit with them. He sits in the corner, reading a bible, or some other book as thick. This doesn’t stop them meeting in their rendezvous: the music room. It’s in those small, private meetings where Kaworu’s presence really hurts the most. Shinji’s feelings never stops being a problem and a question, and they flare up from the smallest of details. Shinji can’t recall ever thinking about such mico-managements of self, except when criticising his own. Though hes listened to Kaworu play a few times now -this time with the headphones turned down- Shinji still can’t play anything for him. He’s too self-conscious, too everything-conscious.

This strange mix tape from Kaworu isn’t helping. Most of the songs sit on a quiet, romantic level, but their textures and structures were unexpected, and at odd times there came great bursts of aggression. The force in Kaworu’s song choices, which was reflected in how he played guitar occasionally, was another enigma. This is what he listens to every day? What does he do while he’s listening to this music? What's the thirteenth child of the Nagisa household like at home? Trying to square this circle occupies much of Shinji’s daydreams, and nightdreams.

When Shinji’s alone, in the middle of his oversize bed, trying to sleep away as much of the days as he can, his thoughts of Kaworu begin in these investigative modes, but they wander. Sometimes they stick to Kaworu, and instead of concern of his ways at school an afterimage forms in Shinji’s head. Both closer and farther away. Soon, he can’t stop his mind fitting in the details. The thought of Kaworu in bed, the thought of Kaworu sleeping, the thought of Kaworu bathing, the thought of Kaworu naked, the thought of Kaworu touching himself.

How would Kaworu touch himself? His hands are so smooth and his body so graceful, Shinji imagines he’s do it gently. Arcing his back and caressing his torso with his right hand as his left pulls on his shaft, legs and toes stretching into the pleasure. His pale skin blushing and his body sweating. And here, much as Shinji regrets his actions even just as he starts -loathing building in time with pleasure- he starts pressing his own arousal forward, and follows his fantasies down their sordid holes. What it would be like if Kaworu touched him? Shinji imagines his intense red eyes inches from his own face, leering. His long fingers would wrap around Shinji’s length while his other hand would caresses Shinji’s body. Shinji would feel scared and protected all at once. They would press their bodies together in the electric knowledge that this was an inalienably secret moment. Shinji writhes as his mind starts repeating the details and his pumps become more hurried, feedback building while the fantasies begin montaging with memories of Kaworu’s slightest touch or smile. This is so fucked up, he thinks. _I’m_ fucked up, he thinks. He doesn’t stop.

Before Shinji can ever meditate on his own evil he rushes the lurid act over, feeling swallowed in regret even as he comes.

It’s the next morning when Shinji decides this is enough. How can he put on airs as a friend of Kaworu’s, when he jerked off to the thought of him? To put distance between himself and Kaworu transforms from a desire to a moral need; his own prurient melancholy had no place in the world of such a virtuous person. Standing next to Kaworu now feels the same as standing under his Church.

That's why it hurts so much when, that day in the music room, after half a quiet lunchtime of nothing at all, Kaworu allofasudden hits him with the same look he did when he handed over the mixtape, one Shinji only just realises he imagined during masturbating. He says

“This Friday, I’m performing with a band at a house party, and I was wondering if you could come?”  
  
No one Shinji knew had ever performed in a concert before, and he’d only gone to a select few himself. Memories of the stench of insecurity and alcohol, the overloud screaming and the bouncers like golems. But, these impressions were resisting another force in his head. The surreality of the idea that Kaworu would be the point of energy in that world, and how that seemed like a pathway to solving the riddle of Kaworu’s contradictions; to see him express himself unabated. The curiosity and ambivalence made an onslaught of his head, and it's was a few seconds before he can even formulate a non-response.

“I... I’d like to, but I’m not sure if my father would let me. I’ll have to see, sorry.”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”  
  
Shinji wishes he didn’t.

 

* * *

 

Shinji’s unsure as to how to prepare for a suburban party like this. His wardrobe’s threadbare enough that he couldn’t overthink that if he tried, but that's just the start.

Kaworu mentioned his band started around 10, but that timing was bound to be loose. He didn’t remark at all of going with Shinji, so it had to be supposed Shinji would get there alone. He'd been told the address, 704 W High street, so that wasn't a problem after consulting a street map. But going alone meant having to socialise at least halfheartedly, which meant he had to drink.

The only way he could stand a party like what he expects is by drinking through it, he knows. Years have passed since the last party without the stuff. Admittedly, parties had been scarce, usually floating in a world several paces removed from his own, but they always brought the same dissatisfaction to the top without booze. Finding the one drug he had extensive experience with hadn’t been a challenge since fourteen. His father, in some dead obligation to his own loneliness, keeps bottles of spirits on full display, though he never seems to drink from them. The first time Shinji stole it he’d felt a kind of tension, a possibility of every moment to end in punishment, but the next time it was a fraction as sharp. Now, even the guilt’s gone. An oversized flask scavenged from somewhere years ago, he fills to the brim with burning whisky.

He takes three swigs -the start is always the hardest- from the bottle before heading out onto the lawnscape that mushes underfoot. The path undulates to trees roots pushing up and around, where Shinji almost trips more than once. It had been raining heavily earlier in the day, but now only a drizzle and a moisture to everything. No stars.

Out the front of his destination, evidence of the madness inside peeks through like flames in a housefire. The undertow thump of a stereo and a muddle of voices. It’s 9:30 when he arrives but people are swarming, one or two already throwing up. Shinji avoids making eye contact with anyone looking too out of it as he enters by the front porch.

He sees the backs of many heads, circles of conversation he can’t inhabit, and a total sense of distance. This was a bad idea. He drinks. No one is going to take care of you and you can’t take care of yourself. Drink. He sits on a couch that looks older than him and stares at precise points where no one is. Everything is sticky. It’s hard not to run. Another drink. It burns and he cringes.

From over the couch, he’s spontaneously tackled. Soon it’s followed by a nuzzle to his neck and the smell of drunk breath. Red hair is flown over his face by a jittery movement and he realises it’s Asuka. She doesn’t break the ice so much as pulverise it.    

“It’s Shinji! Stupid Shinji… I didn’t think you’d be cool enough to come here. But everyone here’s lame anyway. Where’s your friends? Just looking at you makes me wanna punch you but also not, y'know? I don’t even feel like punching anyone here but you…”

She’s falling over the front of the couch, and her chest pushing into Shinji’s shoulders before he gets out of the way. His mood is so tense that a familiar face, even in a position as awkward as this, is relieving.

“I hope you stay for my band Shinji, we’re going to destroy that princy boy you love, we're on after ‘im, I bought my best amp and it’ll rip out your ears.”

“Alright, who’s in your band Asuka?”

“Oh well Touji plays the drums but not tonight, his parents wouldn’t let him out. Oh, and Kaworu’s playing.”

“I thought u said you were going to destroy him?”  
  
“Oh yeah! He’s on solo first, then we play as a band after. Hey, what are your parent’s doing letting you out? I’dve bet they’re stupid dorks like you...”

It's good to talk to Asuka right now, because he can almost fool himself into thinking she means something to him. Even slurred and sad like this, the force behind her doesn’t die, and that’s not even mentioning her striking body and wild hair; she probably has many admirers. If it wasn’t for Kaworu he’d probably be nursing a smaller crush for her instead, but now she’s almost throwing herself at him and he’s challenged to feel anything.

He notices she drinks when her conversation hits a stride. Shinji instead drinks when he can't think of anything to say; when the universe digs into his cortex. She fuels her power with alcohol, but Shinji buries feeling. In that small moment of insight, Shinji wonders if they’re just like each other, when neither technique works.

It’s -Shinji looks to his clock- 10:30 before the crowd begins congregating. No one tells him, but the movement of people is toward the basement. Down there, the crowd is smaller than he’d expected, seeing maybe 30 heads, but more than any sense of the people, the overall feeling is filth. The walls seemed to be sweating already, and -even if Shinji can’t spot any- there's the impression of a roach around every crevice, of which there are lot. The lights are faulty and dim, and there’s no stage elevation, no nothing but a powerboard and band gear set up, the majority of which was speakers.The crowd’s thin enough he can see the stage anyway.

The music from unknown speakers cuts and the murmuring dissipates; anticipation grows. A muted applause and a palest puff around the other side of the room reveales Kaworu making another one of his elusive entrances, footsteps silent and in his school clothes. There’s 0 sign of intoxication on him as he picks up his guitar and holds it’s neck with the sensitivity of a lover.

It’s just one strum to blast open fullforced all of the speakers stacked behind Kaworu, sending shocking vibrations through the crowd and - apparently nonplussed- he seems to be lifted by the soundwaves, up and forward like an evangelical levitation. Like the guitar pedals give him transcendence. He holds the crowd all alone, blasting reverberations over sweaty heads that couldn’t dance with no beat but seemed, for the most part, entrapped. Kaworu’s face is pained, his strokes speed up, and he’s holding clear fatigue from whatever energy he’s put out, eyes closed and wincing, but he doesn’t stop. It might be Shinji’s constant sips of his flask, or it might be the magic he’s seeing, but it’s difficult to tell how much time has passed. His ears are now -in a sensation he hasn’t had before- filled to brim with sound, as there feels no room for increase, all space taken.

It stops, and as the audience claps other members set up around Kaworu, including Asuka who -first thing- grabs her microphone, almost falling but fixing posture with the stand, to holler “hey that was COOL and all but we’re here to ROCK and that BULLSHIT is OVER WOOOOOOO”.

In the new band setup, Kaworu’s guitar’s turned down a little and his strumming becomes rhythmic, an undercurrent to Asuka’s lead melodies on voice and guitar. The sweat of everyone is mixing in the dank room as dancing continues, and Kaworu’s voluminous hair begins sticking to his neck and head. He looks over at Shinji, and winks to his coded smile.

It's halfway through the third song when Shinji runs up and out the door, unable to take it anymore.


	5. Bluegrassish

The stars are out when he looks up. Far more than he’s used to. The moon’s gibbous, but bright. He needs to forget.

 

In the concert, the way Kaworu was more than alive, the feeling of longing that welled in him, he was lost in it. He could only think he’d break if he continued being there. If somehow Kaworu’d come talk to him afterwards, rather than anyone else in the party, Shinji couldn't have helped but crush his bones in a hug and confess everything into his side, slurring, whimpering. So, he had to leave. 

 

Turning right outfront the house, he swigs, and begins stumbling. It was easy to drink now; with burning gone. He had planned a route from and back to his house, but he turned in the opposite direction, not wanting to know what street he’s on, just wants the street to fold up like a picture book with the road’s center it’s spine; crush him like a bug. 

 

The heavy trees slush damp leaves on the sidewalk, where he almost slips but saves himself, choosing direction nonsensically at the the street’s end. Emotional exhaustion is starting to shift into physical and, for the first time of his life, he’s so drunk he can’t see straight. Streetlights here are opaque balls on staffs, their light soft. Shinji takes every step with effort, and goes on like that for a while, in a street of no one, counting his steps then loosing count.

 

Eventually, he crosses a man-made river, stopping a moment to watch the moonlight reflected on the currents, slouching his whole body weight over railing. On the further bank is an empty plot of land. He doesn’t sit, but trips, just choosing to lay down right where he falls, cold grass in his face. The trickle of river is heard, and a car passing like an ocean wave. After some time waiting, though he didn’t know what for, he turns on his back, and looks up at the stars. 

 

He wishes he had his SDAT again, or had much of anything but a flask and unrequited love. One of those is gone easily easily, he thinks, finishing what's left of his drink, not much. Unwilling to stop, his mind throws up ideas of the worst possible future with Kaworu, where they stay friends without Shinji’s secret ever found. Following around someone so much more than him,  but marrying someone else with the hope that his unrequited feelings would subside. Maybe they would, in the slightest, but so long as Kaworu was in his life, Shinji doubted he’d ever be free.      
  
The currents of nausea drag him down without letting him sleep, and even looking upward needs effort. A black, sticky pit begins to form in his stomach, and he alternatively nurtures a fights it, still while his mind’s being masochistic with it’s theatre. He’s not being attentive. If he had been, he would’ve noticed the frantic running in his direction, the soft pat of steps after rain. He would have noticed the tinny reverberation of the steps on the steel footbridge over the river, then hitting his patch of grass, and he would not have been shocked senseless at a second body crashing into his, somewhere between hug and tackle.

 

Whiplash is in his neck, Kaworu is panting with his head buried in Shinji’s torso, and Kaworu’s back is visible through his sweat-drenched shirt. As Shinji’s still processing their position, but Kaworu jerks back to stare at him like at a dead man. He’s never looked so disheveled to Shinji, so out of tune.  

 

The stare is sustained for a few moments, but all too quickly what Shinji expected happens. Shaking apart, it’s broken; and a whole world of heart overflows. He buries himself, into Kaworu’s scared, hot arms, just a degree away from outright weeping into his shoulder.

 

“What’s wrong?” Kaworu asks, somehow with no trace of reserve.

 

It comes out before Shinji can stop himself, “I didn’t want you to find out I had a crush on you.” 

 

Rythmbreaking, Kaworu pulls out, and tries to look at Shinji, hands sturdy on his shoulders, but Shinji can’t, immersed in shame. I’ve done it, he’s broken the hug because I disgusted him, he’s going to get up and leave now, he’s going to spread rumours around the school if he means to or not. I won’t be able to look at him again, he thinks I’m going to hell and I’ve lied to him that I was normal for weeks, he-

 

Kaworu moves his hand from Shinji’s shoulder to his jaw, and moves his face away from hiding, Shinji’s body fluid from drunkenness, but he keeps his eyes averted, trying desperately to imagine being anywhere but here. 

 

“Shinji, listen to me, I-”

 

“No, don’t pretend it’s okay, don’t pretend we can still be friends, It’s fine, I’m sorry, I can make my way home, it’s just th-” 

 

“I like you too.”

 

Shinji stops breathing, and returns the stare. The streetlights, the birds on the trees, and everything but the running water, stops. The whole world feels green. It’s the longest stretch of time that feels like a singular ‘moment’ in either of their lives. They study the myriad subtleties in each other’s irises, feeling like they could forever. Shinji thought he couldn’t see straight just before, but he’s managing fine right now. 

 

Kaworu moves forward, hesitant. The ground feels changed since the confession, like unlearned rules apply. Their lips meet. 

 

Its short, a suggestion of itself more than anything, with a cadence to another connection of eyes, heady. This time Shinji breaks to a glance at a bottom lip before -maybe only with the courage of alcohol- he understands the moment, moving in to kiss again. 

 

Slowly, but all at once, it deepens. Tongues touch, for the first time so hesitantly they recoil at the sensation, like when Kaworu first touched Shinji in the rehearsal room, but the progression is inevitable now, till they push against each other. There’s a sensitive grace in it all, absorbing all focus. Shinji hopes his drunkenness isn’t ruining anything, because Kaworu kisses with the softness in his voice.  

 

Their next breath is some sort of installed brake, to stop the act carrying itself off course, but eye contact holds in the kiss’s place -they don't have the nerve to sever wholly. 

 

There’s a nervous coil in Shinji’s stomach, which he attributes to nerves, but it quickly grows, summoning the rest of his body to recoil yards from Kaworu as a pressure builds into his throat and then finally his digestive system feels itself turn inside out, acrid stench filling his insides with the violent hurl of dinner and several drinks, feeling nothing but disgusting like he felt nothing but peace moments ago. 

 

* * * 

  
When he wakes up, the feeling is of wearing several filmy, dried layers of his own sweat, and his mouth’s saliva sticking thick, makes him wish for any time but now. Even lying down, his head’s heavy. He’s fully clothed, with those layers having their own detritus film. It’s been awhile since he’s been hungover, but this just might be the most foul it’s ever made him feel. The second he moves things feel twisted, guts rearranging, hard to focus on anything outside his body. Regret feels like a wash. 

 

There are holes in his memory, big ones, but certain visions are salient; the alien house party, Kaworu’s playing, and the feeling of vomiting on a vacant lawn lot, and kissing Kaworu. He says it to himself a few times over, Kaworu kissed me, so grateful the memory stuck.

 

How did he get home? He tries remembering that but that kind of thinking is painful. He realises he’s still a little drunk. How much time passes, with the overpowering sensory battle of guts, filth, and migraine, is hard to tell. He knows he should go drink water at least but even that sounds arduous, if not impossible. If this were any other hungover morning, there’d be an emotional low that’d spear harder than filth and pain, but it isn’t. 

 

The weight of the last few weeks had been lifted, and he cradled himself in that relief. It didn’t hurt to think of Kaworu anymore and -much as doubts swirled of the future, after making a fool of himself to someone with the decorum of Kaworu- their relationship didn’t seem doomed. These thoughts help up Shinji, even as, rising from his bed, a tidal current of nausea rocks his small frame, and he’s two degrees away from vomiting again. 

 

He stumbles to the bathroom, and holds his mouth under the sink. Some of it hits his hair, feeling greasy where it usually feels light. He pulls himself, torpid and slouched, out of his clothes and into the shower, which helps, though he sits down in it.

 

When he’s finished and looks down at his own body in the bathroom mirror, he feels limp, unfinished. It’s not as if Shinji was ever felt proud of his body, but last night with Kaworu seemed to recontextualise everything. A thought changed from ‘I don’t look good’ to ‘do I even deserve Kaworu? Could he even be attracted to me?’ just like so. The way his hip bones jutted from his stomach, was it always like this? Drying off quickly, he tries not to think about it.  

 

It’s only when he’s half naked walking down the stairs that he sees his Father’s home in the kitchen.

 

It’s hard to predict when Gendo will be home, considering they could go days without even seeing each other, but certain mornings -to no discernable pattern- Gendo will sit at the kitchen table for breakfast, holding open a giant paper with coffee in the classic fatherly pose. Why’d it have to be now? Gendo doesn’t even look up from his paper, but just as Shinji thinks the silence will be his lesser evil, Gendo begins with his stentorian voice that had always made Shinji nervous. 

 

“Who was that boy who brought you home last night?”

 

So, that’s how he got here. Right, of course Kaworu wouldn't've left a biley Shinji on his own to walk home from some lost street corner when he could barely stand.  

 

“That’s Kaworu.”

 

In a pause that feels longer than it’s long length, Gendo drinks from his coffee. 

 

“Don’t go out and make a fool of yourself like that again, your health insurance doesn’t cover it. I noticed you stealing my scotch.” and then a paper rustle.

  
“And don’t associate with that boy I could tell he’s the reason you were out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be back to normal posting from now.


	6. Made Up Dreams

Carrying Shinji isn’t hard for Kaworu. The boy’s frame is light, resting piggyback, the sound of him breathing soft accompanying motoric steps. Kaworu’s never carried anyone before, but it feels natural like the kiss did. Shinji speaks, but so drowsy it’s almost difficult to discern. “My Dad’s gonna kill me.” and Kaworu wonders, in the vulnerability of that comment, how similar their live are.

 

Kaworu has no memory of his mother, but his father, Adam, is always quick to say Kaworu was ungrateful for her love and care. From infancy, he was a solitary boy, seeming to trust no one. He played private games, of roleplay with dolls, tree climbing, or strange constructions with blocks. All this he did with the greatest secrecy, though he couldn’t say why. When he didn’t listen to his parents, or was caught hiding something from then, he would be hit, after which he’d shrink into a corner and sulk there for a week. He would never embrace his parents and avoided showing himself crying, or much of any vulnerability. Once, whilst meeting a distant relative, Kaworu refused to hug or even touch the visitors, which stoked Adam’s fury. “You don't care for anyone! Are you a human being? You're not, you fell from somewhere else, but you’re stuck here now, so embrace your family.” Those words never left Kaworu, and cemented his distance from his father. Adam taught him to read and write young, so he could follow the Scriptures, but soon as the work was done, they only interacted when necessary.

 

Kaworu thinks of this as they’re trudging along, through soft lights and loud trees, but though Shinji sounds drowsy, he's still thinking aloud “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met Kaworu. I don’t get it.” and it makes Kaworu chuckle. It might be right in Shinji’s case, but Kaworu doesn’t ‘get it’ either. For everyone else, it’s spectacularly wrong.

 

Truth is that Kaworu has dark, strange dreams, of godlike powers and the might to use them. In them, he feels supra-human, as if life were a resource to give and take. When he wakes, he meditates on what he saw, but it's almost as if he’s taking pleasure in it, too. Such strange flights of mind aren’t limited just to dreams either. Sometimes, when alone, he stops suddenly in the house, or even in the yard or street, and stands still for minutes at a time, not exactly lost in thought, but lost in  _ something _ . Afterwards he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he wouldn’t be able to answer. Still, internally, something remains, scintilla of the impression which had dominated him during the lost time. It felt violent, serene, and alien all at once. He treasures these impressions, and hoards them imperceptibly, even unconsciously. How and why, he doesn’t know. He imagines he may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or maybe he’ll shoot up the school, maybe both. 

He only understood as he matured that it was this part of his life was what kept the world at a distance. It wasn’t exactly an elitism toward everyone, but it was a kind of barrier. He couldn’t imagine describing what he felt to anyone without giving the impression of psychosis. The only thing that seemed to even trace the shape of this uncertain core in Kaworu’s life was the idea of God, and so he reads bible daily. Adam’s proud of this, if nothing else. 

It was only when from across the school’s front lawn Kaworu spotted Shinji for the first time that -like a lightning bolt - he felt a direct sense of  _ being  _ in someone else, a push toward Shinji that resembled the way his dreams ensnared him, lit a fire in him the world never had.   
  
Late at night, lying in his single, lumpy hand-me-down bed, in a room barely larger than a closet, considering to himself what sparked such a feeling, Kaworu thought the fragility in the other boy, contrasted with his tenacity of spirit. For someone so unsure and despondent to not to seek refuge in anyone but himself struck Kaworu as tragic, brave even. He wanted to nurture time with him, slide to being his support so Shinji could rest his troubled thoughts. 

Shinji rests more relaxed on Kaworu's back, whole chest slouched against Kaworu and arms slack forward, cheek nuzzling his soft hair, thinking in mumbles, just off Kaworu’s ear “you smell so nice” which sends shivers down the other boy. No one had ever made Kaworu react like that, and it wasn’t too long ago that he’d recoil from such a feeling.  

As Kaworu went through highschool, he begun to notice the way people looked at him changing, mostly girls. He felt nothing for them; after puberty, Kaworu found he was almost never aroused by another person, and masterbated rarely, thinking of little more than the sensation itself, so he never saw such feelings directed toward him as anything other than a burden. He had no problem with being observed, but felt almost wrathful whenever some girl tried to flirt with him, tried to appeal to him sexually with how she dressed or moved. Sex was dirty, basal, and a sever in the connection to the spiritual world. Gender had nothing to do with it, as far as he reasoned. 

It was after a week or so that Kaworu noticed how Shinji looked at him. Not with any sort of predatory edge, more like the shyer girls who never approached but blushed behind books whenever they made eye contact. But, his desire to care and be with Shinji didn’t falter from the discovery, and transformed any repulsion into a kind of concerned curiosity. He reasoned that Shinji didn’t seem intent to act on his feelings, and hence maybe he thought of them as nothing more than private burdens to keep to himself, like Kaworu saw his own sexual thoughts. But from the hint of noticing Shinji’s feelings, Kaworu found it impossible to not think just a touch more basal when he looked at Shinji himself. His fascination with Shinji had of course lead to careful perception of his body, but while before he justified his looking with it being nothing more than a want to  _ know _ him like what sparked their friendship, Kaworu realised later he enjoyed looking at Shinji for itself, just feeling slightly magic for all the quirks and flourishes that made him -Kaworu caught himself thinking- such a cute person.  

By accumulation of moments, Kaworu began to feel more comfortable with Shinji’s attraction to him. He even began to see the boy’s embarrassed reactions to Kaworu’s touch or words endearing, and soon Kaworu was deliberately chasing this sheepishness out of him. “Is this what you call flirting?” Kaworu caught himself offhandedly thinking a few weeks into them knowing one another. He hoped it wasn’t hurtful, and wanted to talk openly of their feelings for each other, but though Shinji’s attraction was obvious, he avoided talking of his own feelings with deft skill, and pushing such boundaries felt risky, with how sensitive Shinji could be. Such trepidation and thought put into personal relationships was wholly new for Kaworu.   

 

They’re not too far from Shinji’s home now, and Kaworu’s certain Shinji’s asleep, but from behind he pipes up, not moving, with more clarity in his voice than before. 

“Kaworu?”   
  
The trudging stops, and Kaworu listens to the silence. 

“You’re not just pitying me, right? You really like me?”

Just how vulnerable Shinji has been tonight, just how scary it must be for him to trust someone like this, hits Kaworu. He thinks about how he can return the favour, make Shinji feel he’s seen a fragile part of Kaworu too.    
  
“I think I love you, Shinji. It feels like I was born to meet you, and it has nothing to do with pity.”

Shinji buries his face into Kaworu’s shoulder, and the other boy actually feels him smile. 

“Thanks.”

That their feelings are now, on some level, revealed feels like a huge relief to Kaworu, so he can’t even imagine how it must feel for Shinji.    


 

The desire to touch another person, hold them close, had vice-gripped him when he found Shinji after the concert on the lawn, looking like a corpse. It was what sparked him to sprint to him, after methodically inspecting all the streets in the direction Asuka saw Shinji go (he had only made it a few blocks before collapsing). Kaworu had never known the sensation, with his insides feeling like they were being torn apart, not to mention the specter of rejection that floated above it all. Was this the emotion he had thought of as filthy weeks before? Was Shinji carrying around this feeling every moment they were together? Had Kaworu really been cruel enough to subject the other boy to that? What Kaworu was feeling in just that moment was what put Shinji in such a sorry state, he knew instinctively. 

That was the first time Kaworu could remember embracing someone voluntarily. It felt pure, right, and pushed all else out of his head. How had he once thought of holding anyone as shameful, when it seemed to hold the whole world world up just then? He had to stop himself from going to kiss Shinji immediately, out of concern for his state.

Though the idea of love was obvious, almost from the moment they met, it was only in how natural it felt to touch Shinji that Kaworu felt what he’d later call love. He felt empathy so strong, so ready for Shinji, he would’ve done anything right then and there to stop his sorry crying and loneliness that peaked through as he confessed. It was just luck that all Kaworu had to do was kiss him.

As they continued kissing, the hunger that rose in Kaworu began to nearly frighten him, with him being so unattuned to his own desires, so it was almost a relief when Shinji suddenly bolted away to puke, though it took him a few seconds of worrying to figure out what was going on, and a whole lot of care to get the boy home. Shinji, barely in control of his own words at the time, still slurred an insistence that he needed no help getting home, but he wasn’t even convinced of his own lie when Kaworu stopped the first fall, so instead moved to holding onto his partner for balance. But the coming trippings didn't stop. The broken apologies and leaning on Kaworu’s frame every second was adorable, but slow, and Shinji needed bed. After how embarrassing the whole night seemed, it wasn’t too difficult to convince Shinji onto his back. 

 

They’re reaching Shinji’s house now, which Kaworu’s never seen up this close before. He lets Shinji down on the porch, and is about to help him get all the way to bed, but upon being let down, Shinji speaks with unexpected insistence.

“No, no. You’ve already done too much. My Dad might be there, he’d kill you aaand me, and, if you take me to bed, I’ll ask you to stay there, but then my Dad would definitely kill us... “

“As long as you think you’ll be okay.” 

In the doorway, Shinji leans against the frame and averts eye contact while holding a sad face, red from blushing. Even after everything that happened tonight, Shinji’s repressive habits seem hard to break. He begins speaking with wobbling fear of his words, only made worse by his intoxication.

“I don’t want to kiss you cause my mouth still tastes weird…”

And, with that as some sort of excuse, he wraps his arms around Kaworu. The embrace feeling easier, less hurried than before. He moves his lips to Kaworu’s ear, trembling just to get the words out.

“I think I love you too…”

Much as Kaworu loves hearing that, it’s almost cruel feeling, because he knows it’s only through the alcohol that Shinji has the courage to say those words. This artificial lowering of guard working as a window to Shinji’s torn inner life. Kaworu doesn’t feel he earnt it, but he hopes to in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Portions of this chapter are lifted from The Brothers Karamazov. Kaworu's arc is inspired by the doujin Kono Netsu no Na o Shiranai by Meco.


	7. Talking Shit About A Pretty Sunset

It’s been difficult not to visit Kaworu this weekend. The thought that just a few block away lived the boy he kissed on Friday runs circles in Shinji’s head, from which he has to distract himself, for fear of seeming too needy to see Kaworu before school. Shinji’s go-to way to avoid thoughts was music, listening and playing, so he picks the guitar up from beside his bed. But entirely involuntarily, Shinji's playing has changed a little. After considering how his melodies have become bolder and chords less prominent, Shinji realizes that he’s playing with the thought of accompanying Kaworu. Even Shinji’s most hallowed insides were caught in Kaworu now, making even distracting himself impossible. Collaboration wasn’t something of his musical life. On the contrary, he had shirked all invitations to all bands that had occasionally popped up through music class. It’s a scary thought to consider how much Kaworu was changing parts of Shinji he himself couldn’t change if he tried.

 

The tape Kaworu had given him, he’d already been listening to almost daily, but now it formed new paths in his psyche. Every song became a code for what Kaworu felt, some more cryptic than others, so of course he can’t find motivation to listen to much else besides. So, distracting himself fails. 

 

In this block of time, Shinji doesn't leave the house, keeps fort in his room, hiding from Gendo (who isn’t even home tonight, but that horrible habit of his of appearing out of nowhere is enough of a deterrent), His time essentially consists only of waiting. It’s stillness made time something you waited to leave, took for granted. 

 

It takes a few second for Shinji to recognize the thin peal from downstairs as a doorbell. In the time of him moving here, it hadn’t been rung once, with no guests at all. The shock it delivers breaks a funk of Shinji’s mind over his journal, where he’d been thinking he’s only one sleep away from meeting Kaworu again. 

 

On the second ring he supposes he should answer. He anticipates some Jehovah's Witness, or anyone else he would rather ignore. 

 

He feels stupid when he opens the door to see Kaworu waiting patiently, the Jeans and hood looking more casual than he’s ever seen. Shinji is, for his part, wearing nothing more than silk boxers and an oversized t-shirt, from which it takes him a few seconds to go red over. 

 

The smile on Kaworu’s face isn’t the one he regularly uses, but a more mischevous kind of smirk, like they’re both in on some joke. Shinji returns it, though not quite knowing why. The whole situation feels mildly humorous, but he can sense a new edge to Kaworu’s manner a kind of pride in this look, as if he had nothing to hide.

 

He follows his appearing with “would you like to come out with me, Shinji?” daring to call it a date, but not quite. 

 

Shinji remarks that he needs to get dressed, telling Kaworu to wait there. It didn’t occur to Shinji to wonder where they were going, with just the thought that it’s with Kaworu filling his mind over thoughts of any plan. Frantically rushing round his room, throwing clothes on and making sure his breath doesn't stink.

 

When he walks out the front door, Kaworu’s standing on the grass with the moon lighting his hair. The night, Shinji only just realizes, is clear as holy-water, and the gibbous moon is just a few waxes from full. A perfect night for staying awake, breaking rules.

 

They walk side by side, leisurely paced and a few degrees closer than the last time they were both sober. Hands brushing but not holding. Kaworu starts the talking, asking of the health of Shinji after the night, what he remembers, with his sincere concern edged with slight comedy. Never in a teasing way, but like he’s still not fully convinced of what happened. They both chuckle at the madness of the night, giddy about each other.  

 

When the laughing subsides, and Shinji holds a gaze of warm love on Kaworu’s face, the tide seems to change. The look continues like there's nothing else in the world, and Shinji's forced to break it before he forgets what he wants to ask. 

 

“It’s nice just walking around like this but, where are we going exactly?”

 

“Just to where I’ve been staying recently. There’s dinner waiting for us, and a host.”

 

He speaks with an almost apologetic lilt, seemingly aware that the answer only raises more questions. Shinji’s not used to probing, knowing himself how unhelpful it can be, but it’s a new sense of trust in another to think that Kaworu wants him to ask, wants the unfortunate complexity of his private life shared. 

 

“Can’t you stay with your parents right now?”

 

Kaworu’s face betrayed a few false starts in his mind for the answer, and it's highly uncharacteristic, but it doesn’t eat into his composure: Shinji wouldn’t’ve noticed it a couple weeks back. 

 

“It’s not as if I can’t, but I left for that concert Friday without telling my father, and it’s hard to go back when I know how he's going to react. I’ve been staying with this person off and on for a while now, so it’s not unprecedented."

 

Kaworu keeps eyes averted during speaking, seeming to hold deep pools of avoided sickness, like harsher versions of what he’s saying are liable to spill out if he’s not careful. 

 

Shinji feels a canyon open between them, from his own shame and shock at how it feels now that really, for all the feelings wrecking through him, he’s realised how he doesn’t know anything about Kaworu. That he hasn’t even noticed, let alone helped, with this unknown hurt in Kaworu’s life. All he can eke out is “I’m sorry” feeling like an idiot. But Kaworu turns, meets eyes with some mutual sadness, and quiets out “don’t be” as he slides his hand into holding Shinji’s, sending  a feeling of red warmth through the other boy. How is it that Kaworu always seems to feel the moment perfectly? He’s fine-tuned to Shinji’s waves of unease. 

 

The rest of the walk’s conversation slides out unhurried with long sections of shared silence, the rare kind that doesn’t feel void. They talk of stars and space, books and movies, and a whole lot else that doesn’t matter. Shinji’s found the consistency and scope of the cosmos reassuring, whereas Kaworu’s had a gut feeling of alien life since childhood that’s fueled knowledge of Astronomy. He sounds totally free of embarrassment when he moves through the nerdy details, or digresses with washy philosophy about the planets.

 

As they turn a street, Shinji realizes with embarrassment that this is the street of the house of Friday’s concert, and Kaworu clarifies that yes, that’s the house. Which on their slow approach resembles more a sleepy intimacy compared to how it intimidated Shinji before. The window’s light seems thick and warm, with for a moment the thought of meeting more people from Kaworu’s life not seeming so scary. Still, what kind of people would live in a place like that? People too cool for Shinji, obviously, and it tightens his nervousness. 

 

On the porch Shinji releases Kaworu’s hand, to which the other boy turns his head in a puppyish frown, but doesn’t protest, knocking on the door. In waiting for the answer Shinji tries peering through the marbled glass of the door, but whoever’s inside isn’t in any hurry. Kaworu seems to consider knocking a second time, but then just enters the open door. 

 

“I’m here with a guest!” he yells with casual, homely rudeness over distant sounds of radio. 

 

“Come in, the more the merrier!” comes back an older, confident woman’s voice, one Shinji almost recognizes. 

 

Down the central hall, from the left side door emerges his music teacher, Misato Katsuragi, in denim short-shorts and a tank top, can of beer in her hand. 

 

Her eyes squint to discern who’s arrived, and take disconcertingly long to register. “Shinji!”. She prances over to hug both of them. Shinji notices she’s not wearing a bra, and tries not to feel uncomfortable at the contact.

 

“Welcome to the Katsuragi household!”

 

The house was miles cleaner than the filth of Friday night, but a general squalor persisted, mostly in beer cans strewn one or two per flat surface. Shinji wonders how drunk Misato is, because she clearly knows how to knock back a beer can.

 

“Shinji’s here?” came a thundering voice upstairs that Shinji immediately recognizes. Asuka runs down the main hall’s stairs like evacuating a bomb threat, but stops dead halfway down and stares straight at Shinji with rose-blushed face and a murderous scowl. She says nothing, but exaggerates a pained groan and stomps back up, as if she had to just look at Shinji to confirm her distaste.

 

“You’re going to have to come down for dinner later! You made it, afterall.”

 

Misato half-tries to put on the airs of a guardian. 

 

“Make me!” 

 

“She’ll come down eventually” Kaworu opines as the 3 of them simmer in awkwardness after Asuka’s fit. They move to the kitchen. Shinji’s having a hard time orienting himself, shocked at a teacher acting so casually, but thankfully Misato does most of the talking, so his mind can wish he wasn’t here in peace. 

 

“I’ve seen you two in the back of the classroom, and you can’t fool me, don’t even bother lying that you’re not together. It’s adorable. I questioned Kaworu about you the other day but he wouldn't say a word, though it was obvious. Now he’s brought you here, so I guess he thinks it's useless to hide it.”

 

“Do you come here often Kaworu?”

 

Shinji’s uncomfortable that their romance was so obvious to a teacher. 

 

Misato interjects “oooh yeah we’re very familiar” in a suggestive wink before Kaworu can say anything, and Kaworu simply looks away in embarrassed frustration. “I’m kidding Shinji, I’d never touch a student. But anyway, I taught Kaworu in middle school as well, and he wasn’t allowed to practice in his house, so I arranged with his parents for him to practice here. This kid practiced so much that in the end I just gave him a key. He stays around here fairly often still. I’m often at my boyfriend’s apartment, and this big place I inherited from my father, so I there was more than enough space to give Kaworu a room. He does errands for me, cleans up when I really need it. 

 

“Asuka’s been living with foster parents around town, but she stays here some of the time. She’ll never tell me what’s wrong with her home, but the foster parents are fine with it. God, I shouldn’t be revealing stuff like that. Well anyway, let’s eat.” 

 

The dinner is a big pot of pasta simmering on the stove, from which the three of them take with mismatched bowls. After the strangeness of sitting around the dinner table and chatting of nothing to a teacher on her third beer in half an hour wears off, it's surprisingly peaceful. Asuka even walks down  when they’re halfway through, scowling Shinji and Kaworu the whole time. On all three of the teenagers, Misato shows her keen sense of how to get a rise out of people, alluding to Asuka’s half-feelings for Shinji just close enough to enrage her, but not to get her leaving the table. 

 

The hole dinner felt suffused with a kind of automatic homeliness that couldn’t help but work itself into Shinji. He feels the weight of care and obligation to others settle in him. He wonders if this is a sense of family. 

 

When they’re done, Misato remarks she needs to finish marking essays and retreats to the study. It doesn’t bode well for Shinji’s thoughts of how teachers mark that Misato’s working drunk. Asuka retreats upstairs without a word. 

 

Kaworu asks Shinji, as they’re packing up bowls and beercans, if he’d like to come to his room. 

 

When Shinji says “yes” he feels paths and doors opening in him to strange futures, already-had fantasies, and his muscles tense as he tries to redirect his thoughts. He’s trying hard to not have expectations.

 

Kaworu’s room is on the second level, adjacent from what muffled punk radio indicates is Asuka’s. The bed looks several generations old, but the room has a kind of feminine cleanliness to it. There’s even a corner of scented candles and fancy soaps. The only messy part is the stack of books on the bedside table, with the bible and a few others. The room's austerity seemed quite fitting for Kaworu. 

 

Shinji enters with Kaworu behind him, and panics a second in wondering if it’d be presumptuous to sit on Kaworu’s bed. Of course it wouldn’t, he berates himself, there’s nowhere else to sit. Kaworu sits beside him, their hands barely not touching. 

 

The silence that comes feels awkward. What do they usually fill space like this with? Shinji wonders. He realises that it’s with Kaworu always directing the conversation, talking effortlessly of the boring, making it interesting. Shinji looks at Kaworu, and though he’s holding himself as well as ever, Shinji sees something he hasn’t before. A sense of lost exhaustion in Kaworu's eyes, an exertion to keep his composed front up. Shinji goes out on a limb. 

 

“Were you nervous about tonight?”

 

Kaworu seems a little relieved at the question, but he’s having trouble finding his words in that decidedly un-kaworu way from the walk here.   

 

“It’s not that…”

 

“...”

 

“I’ve never properly explained my family situation to you before, so I was worried about how you’d react… look, I'm not sure how to explain what I'm feeling to you. Can I show you something instead?” 

 

Shinji gives a tight nod, and Kaworu moves over to his window, opens it, and climbs up on the ledge, then pulls himself onto the lowly sloped roof above. 

 

Though he’s scared by the thought of it, Shinji finds the maneuver Kaworu made surprisingly easy to replicate. Shinji standing on the window frame, Kaworu holds his hand to help him onto the roof, barely above. Kaworu’s moves to the highest point, smiling with his mouth but not his eyes. When did I start perceiving his smiles so distinctly? Shinji asks himself. Kaworu's hair whips around his face. He sits down and gestures for Shinji by patting the spot adjacent. As Shinji comes up, he sees how high they are, above the neighboring houses and seeing a strangely wide view of town. 

 

There’s not much light from the streets, only patches of orange glow that’s swallowed by the billowing trees, reaching up into the strong moonlight. The place looks foreign from above, almost a fantasy landscape, and he could imagine spirits moving between the low streets. 

 

He begins thinking of how happy he is to be here, which hadn’t occurred to him of this town ever before. 

 

“Kaworu, do you like this town?”

 

Kaworu looks at Shinji for a second, then looks away to chuckle. It sounds horrible, like a peaking through of all the anger that every other moment Kaworu had scrubbed clean from his demeanor. He draws his legs into his chest and presses his face into his knees.

 

“You’re the only thing I’ve found in here that’s ever made me happy. I feel totally against this place, and it's only up here where I don't hate it, seeing it from above. I feel like I was meant to be somewhere else, that there was a horrible mistake.”

 

Shinji feels almost frightened in seeing Kaworu’s artifice break, but welling in him is a rushing empathy, a directive to do everything to heal a pain that he felt was now his own. He holds onto both of Kaworu’s hands, and as the other boy looks up, eyes watering, he kisses him, feeling the other boy’s slightest shiver from it.

 


End file.
